Ahoy, DECmate II! the little PDP-8 that could

In 1982, as we mentioned at length with our history of the DEC Professional, Digital Equipment Corporation attempted to keep their PDP-11 minicomputer market-relevant by turning the venerable architecture into a largely incompatible desktop microcomputer. But that wasn't the only PDP-series mini it happened to, and it wasn't even the first: the PDP-8 actually got the shrink-ray treatment several years before, and not content to merely make it into a smaller general purpose computer, DEC turned it into a word processor.

#retrocomputing #dec #digital #pdp-8 #pdp8

https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2026/05/ahoy-decmate-ii-little-pdp-8-that-could.html

Ahoy, DECmate II! the little PDP-8 that could

In 1982, as we mentioned at length with our history of the DEC Professional , Digital Equipment Corporation attempted to keep their PDP-11 m...

Ah, yes, the DECmate II, the "little PDP-8 that could"—more like "the little PDP-8 that barely could but we talk about it incessantly anyway." 🚢🔍 Who knew turning a #minicomputer into a desktop would lead to more articles than sales? 📉💾
http://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2026/05/ahoy-decmate-ii-little-pdp-8-that-could.html #DECmateII #PDP8 #nostalgia #techhistory #computing #HackerNews #ngated
Ahoy, DECmate II! the little PDP-8 that could

In 1982, as we mentioned at length with our history of the DEC Professional , Digital Equipment Corporation attempted to keep their PDP-11 m...

Ahoy, DECmate II! the little PDP-8 that could

In 1982, as we mentioned at length with our history of the DEC Professional , Digital Equipment Corporation attempted to keep their PDP-11 m...

I modified a VERY cheap and nasty display rack to fit my #PDP8 computer and monitor, almost perfectly.

This post
https://fosstodon.org/@deshipu/116510956431897662

tongue in cheek as it is, idly got me wondering if building a 5 bit computer would have ever made sense. The PDP-8/S was a *ONE* bit computer in the sense it reused the ALU one bit at a time cycling the bits through. It had also earned the nickname the PDP-8/Slow for this reason.
A University school mate of mine owned one!
The minimum 'byte' was 6 bits and it used RAD50 for this reason. So no a 5 bit computer would not have made sense, to save RAM as jokingly put, but we come close.

#PDP8 #PDP8S

ɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ (@[email protected])

Ancient Romans wrote everything in upper case, and wrote numbers with letters, because they could only use 5-bit encoding due to severe RAM shortages.

Fosstodon
Günstig abzugeben: DEC PDP-8/a, scheckheftgepflegt. #VCFe #VCFe25 #vintagecomputing #dec #pdp8 #retrocomputing

#RetroComputing Meetup @cbase
Freitag, 01.05. ab 20 Uhr
in der c-base, Rungestraße 20, 10179 Berlin

Offener #VintageComputing Stammtisch

Bei einem Getränk reden wir über Themen von #Zuse bis #Amiga, egal ob #Atari, #Commodore, #Apple oder #PDP8-#PDP11 - Hauptsache alte Rechner

[Перевод] RESISTORS: как подростки из 1960-х работали с компьютерами до эпохи ПК

В конце апреля 1968 года компьютерная конференция в Атлантик-Сити едва не сорвалась из-за забастовки телефонисток: терминалы крупных компаний стояли мёртвые. И вот посреди этой неразберихи в центре внимания оказалась небольшая группа подростков из окрестностей Принстона. Они раздобыли акустический модем, подсоединили его к ближайшему таксофону — и вышли на связь с удалённой мини-ЭВМ. Отраслевая газета Computerworld вывела их на первую полосу с заголовком в духе «Школьники украли шоу у профессионалов». Эти ребята называли себя RESISTORS — придуманная задним числом расшифровка аббревиатуры: «Radically Emphatic Students Interested in Science, Technology, Or Research Studies» — то есть «Радикально увлечённые ученики, интересующиеся наукой, техникой и исследованиями».

https://habr.com/ru/companies/cloud4y/articles/1029094/

#RESISTORS #история_компьютеров #Тед_Нельсон #гипертекст #PDP8 #Burroughs_Datatron_205 #Клод_Каган #Project_Xanadu #Computer_Lib #история_программирования

RESISTORS: как подростки из 1960-х работали с компьютерами до эпохи ПК

В конце апреля 1968 года компьютерная конференция в Атлантик-Сити (штат Нью-Джерси) едва не сорвалась: телефонистки бастовали, а сочувствующие забастовке монтажники отказывались подключать выставочные...

Хабр

Well, I've now bypassed Tindie (that I've always wanted to support previously) and ordered a #PDP8 kit directly...

https://obsolescence.dev/pdp8.html

PDP-8 Replica: The PiDP-8

Entry page describing the PiDP-8, a replica of the PDP-8 computer